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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Here is a video of my most recent runs down upper Eagle Creek falls in the Clackamas drainage. The falls is about 19' feet with about 15' of vertical. It developes a large hole at high water that begins to resemble a low-head dam. The first clip is a med-high water run and the hole was starting to get big.
(Jordan's last name is actually Englert)
This creek is an interesting one that can be a good introduction to creeking if it is cleaned out of wood. In some years the wood situation can be somewhat iffy. This year is a pretty good one with one portage a short ways below the boyscout rapid and less than a mile below the upper falls. The upper run is mostly class 2 with the exeption of the falls and the boyscout rapid. The falls now has a log in the normal boof line on the right (actually both falls have wood on the lower right where you want to be) but can be run center without difficulty or even far left through an ugly hole at the top if you are really wanting something gnarly.
This is the standard boof on the right when there is no log blocking it The Lower section has one more falls that is a little sketchy because of the consequences with a missed line that are bad on the right side and more than terrifying on the left. The line is to boof right avoiding a big piton and be in control enough to avoid a log that is propped against the right wall. The mile and a half below the lower falls is some great class three that reminds me of a steeper version of the Sandy Gorge without the class four. Another good thing about this creek is it holds its water pretty well. The last time we ran it it hadn't rained hard for a while (couple weeks?) and we still weren't quite scraping, though the upper falls was difficult to get a good boof off of because of the lack of speed. After the steep section below the lower falls it is class 2- or less to the take-out. You will know when you have reached this point because there is a beautiful house on the left with a nice field, then the creek goes between some boulders then obviously gets less gorgy wiht noticably smaller rapids.
One more thing about this falls is if you put in any kind of boof stroke on the right side of the falls you will land very flat, and with the low airation at the bottom this can really hurt. Here Paul demonstrates the less controlled but less painful no stroke which still results in a flatter than 45 degree landing